Plastic Memories episode 5: Just pull the trigger already

Well, this recovery operation sure didn’t go as smoothly as planned. Things escalated quickly in their endeavor to find Marcia and what was supposed to be a peaceful burial ended up in a kidnapping and a murder. It was expected that at some point plastic memories would be more than just Isla and Tsukaza flexing in their apartment, so I was happy that finally we got an episode with a bit more drama and development than what we were given before. Although I must admit this episode felt way too dramatic and emotionally complex for what was happening.

I don’t understand the big hold up about shooting Marcia at the end. Tsukaza acts like he was about to do something he would regret for the rest of his life, but really all he did was his job and furthermore, he only shot at a robot here. Yes she had a personality and felt really human, but the past tense needs to be used here since her personality was going away with every passing second. This was not the Marcia they knew, it was just a body without control, I don’t understand the big deal of shooting her. It is not like they had such a strong attachment to one another either, they only met once or twice before and now she was too far gone to even remotely resemble the person she was before.

We’ve seen shows like Psycho-Pass were people shoot latent criminal to kill them without a second thought, Why was it so difficult for Tsukaza to pull the trigger? I get that he’s not a detective or a cop, he’s just a little nobody who got lucky having this new job. It remains that I think I would have shot Marcia way, way before. What’s the end game of not shooting her anyway? Hoping she’ll be normal and you’ll get a decent departure? Things were screwed up enough as it is, no reason taking chance for her to have a worthy goodbye. Sometimes luck sucks and you end up getting kidnapped on the last day of your life, yes it is unfair, yes it blows, but you can’t do anything about it. Only thing he could have done is finish this mess earlier so he wouldn’t hurt the kid even more for no reason.

The episode ends on something akin to a cliffhanger. We are left to wonder if Isla is dead or not, if she was not shot by the bug-gun trying to finish off Marcia. It is a pretty ridiculous ciffhanger though since there would be no show and no point for Isla entire character development if she was dead. If somehow she was dead, the show would just be over, I’d stop watching right here and now because it was the only thing going on. Without Isla this show has no reason to exists, it becomes a sci-fi slice of life, and I would hate something like that.